Third Attempt at a Homemade DIY Table Tennis Racket

Why I Need to Build Another Racket
My first racket, when combined with LKT Rapid Speed 2.0 rubber on both sides, weighs 220 grams.  That's 130 for the 7 ply fiberglass reinforced blade, plus 90 for the rubber and rubber cement used to glue it on.  I played with it for an hour and it's too heavy.  Okay for predictably looping the forehand, pleasant to smash with, but horrible for backhands, where the wrist is more involved.  And because I didn't build up the handle enough, I always had the impression it might slip out of my hand and kill someone.

Who knew building a ping pong paddle could be so hard?  I felt I had to do a few things differently:

1. Lay off the fiberglass.  The fabric I have is too thick, I think, and it brings in way too much plastic resin.  It's a theory.
2. Use clamps instead of weight to form the laminate.  I need to drive more of the glue out, thin out the glue lines.  Glue provides little strength on its own.
3. Less layers and a bigger, monolithic core.

I also rough-cut a piece of birch plywood to shape, to see how the weight came in.  

Left to right:  original 3 ply butt joined blade proof of concept, 80g; finished 7 ply blade, 130g; 2x LKT Rapid Speed with leftover rubber cement, 90g; rough-cut birch blade, 104g

Not good enough.  So I began to calculate.  The idea was to calculate the weight of a cut out blade based on a ratio from the 6"x10" whole board. That way, I could measure the boards going into the paddle and determine how it would turn out in advance.  I used the birch plywood and the remainder pieces as my sample, and calculated a bunch of stuff from it.

These calculations are all crap

The problem is that the birch plywood I started with was not cut to the final 10" length, but 12".  So my golden ratio of 0.57 was relatively useless.  And I didn't feel like doing it again.  I wanted action, not words!  I still think this is a good idea, though.  I really should do it.

So my next attempt was a 5 ply:  3/16" balsa core, two transverse 1/32" basswood plies, and finally two longitudinal 1/32" basswood plies.  All this wood came from National Balsa, which has been my choice of suppliers so far.  I didn't even pay for the balsa.  It came as part of the packing, to prevent my 6" wide 1/32" thick basswood sheets from breaking.  Sweet.

Here We Go
Per my new plan, this time I clamped rather than weighted.

Those are 1/2" granite tiles on an old desk, with a length of oak on top to keep the metal off the stone.  The glue is two part epoxy left over from my guitar project.  Next I needed a method to measure mass, or Earth weight.

This scale is a 500g model from Harbor Freight for ~$13.  It works consistently.

Once the piece cured and I cut it to shape, minus a couple millimeters per side to cut the weight further and make it easy to fit my old rubber sheets, it was about 87 grams.  Too much, so I hollowed the handle.

Blade with hollowed handle section.

I do all this work with a bandsaw, files, a Stanley SurForm cheese crater, and 100 grit sandpaper.  While I have a router, I do not have a router table.  That's why it looks totally unprofessional - I don't make templates and route around them.

Handles ready to be applied.

I decided I didn't need the end to be closed.  I broke it out completely.  The handles are more 3/16" balsa plus a layer of 1/16" basswood on top.  The completed blade is a good weight, IMO.

Completed blade, 91.2 grams

LKT Rapid Speed rubber reapplied and trimmed.

Assembled racket, 175.4 grams

Not bad!  Nearly 45 grams lighter than that beast I built the first time.

Playing Impressions
The completed paddle is in line with "real" paddles I've played with in the past.  Again, the handle isn't thick enough, thus the hockey tape.  I can flip the backhand much better than the 220gr monster, and it's only 5gr heavier than my friends preassembled Stiga Cannon.  It is of course much spinnier and hard to handle.

I am not a rater player, I haven't even come out of the basement yet, so I don't know how this blade and combination rates.  ALL?  OFF?  Who knows.

Now I have to get used to playing "real" rubber again.  The old monster blade, at 130gr naked, will be converted into a sandpaper paddle.

Relative Paddle Weights

• "Ping Pong, the Original" 4 pack of preassembled paddles: 135g - 141g
• Stiga Cannon preassembled paddle: 171g
• My second blade, the "beast": 130g
• My third attempt, hollow handle:  91g

Second Homemade Table Tennis Racket Complete

I put a couple coats of wipe on poly to seal the blade and prevent the handle from soaking up skin grease too fast.  I'm not a genius at table tennis but I have a feeling this would be classed as a very, very rigid blade.  Could be wrong.  OFF, certainly, I'd bet.  With 7 plies, two of them bias plies and two of them glass, and epoxy for the adhesive, it's definitely a beast.

I followed some instructions on the intertubes to apply the rubber to the blade using rubber cement.  I got some thinner for the cement, and I probably should have used it, but working quickly with the un-thinned cement went okay.  Apply one coat to the blade, two to the rubber sheets, let dry to tacky, apply, roll, put under a big book, trim.

It was the trimming that went horribly.  I used a fresh razor blade and it kept catching in the foam and the rubber.  I ended up using a pair of shears, going an eight inch at a time - and still, it's crap.  Functional, yes!  But ragged and crap looking.  I supposed I might get better with practice.

See?  Also this thing weighs about 10,000 pounds.  I figure the blade started out heavy because I chose maple for the core.

I'll let you know how it plays.  I expect to bring a lot more spin to our little table at work than anybody else, and I expect a lot of people to be irritated by it, including me.  I plan on visiting a TT club an hour away sometime in the next month to play some folks who are above my level, and maybe get their opinions on my racket.

Second Attempt at Homemade Table Tennis Blade

This time I'm going to do 7 plies, 5 of them wood, all glued with 2 part epoxy:

1. Center ply of 1/16" hard maple, lengthwise grain
2. Two plies of 1/32" basswood, 45 degree grain (from a 12" wide sheet)
3. Two plies of 8.9oz S Glass Satin Weave, Thickness: 0.0097"
4. Two plies of 1/32" basswood, lengthwise grain

This picture shows the layers as they will be assembled:

I assembled them painstakingly between two pieces of super-flat polished granite from a big box home improvement store, each covered with sections of black garbage bag to protect them for another project.  Weight added to mash everything together.

I don't have an accurate scale but it feels kind of heavy so I'll skip the oak handles and use more basswood instead:

Use one of these when you sand.  It cost about $40.  The filter packs are replaceable.  It handles particulates, some VOCs, some acid vapors, and other things I cannot pronounce.  It works infinitely better than those silly fabric masks you buy by the dozen because it is comfortable, seals perfectly, doesn't get all soaked with moisture, and doesn't fog your glasses if you have them.   That last point is worth at least $40 to me.  

The handle halves were laminated separately on the same granite slabs using regular glue, then bonded to the blade handle with regular glue.  I'm tired of epoxy at this point - shit sticks to everything and won't ever come off, forces you to throw tons of gloves and plastic and brushes straight into the landfill.

I shaped the handle using a rat tail file and 100 grit sandpaper.   I finished it using 220 grit sandpaper. Careful when you use a coarse file, or even course paper - you can shred the grain.  The laminations help with that, though.

What did I learn?  

1. Use a half-template:  one half of a paddle shape, flipped on its axis.  That way your thing is symmetrical
2. Just buy one next time
3. I'm tired of chemicals.  Every time I do a project I'm up to my ass in chemicals.